Sam Julien
a010f33994
## Summary
- turn `/threads` into a product-oriented overview that explains why
developers use CopilotKit Threads and routes them by job to Drawer,
Headless, import, architecture, and deployment docs
- label the overview as `Overview` in the Threads navigation while
retaining `Threads` as the page title
- move the existing custom UI implementation guide to
`/headless-threads` across root, generated, authored, and Built-in
framework surfaces
- present the architecture as a product-to-system story: what users
experience, the UI/runtime/agent pieces in the app, and Enterprise
Intelligence as the cloud-hosted or self-hosted Threads platform
- provide responsive desktop and mobile diagram assets in light and dark
modes, showing durable history, replay to live, realtime sync,
lifecycle, and locking
- move `Threads & Persistence Architecture` into the Threads navigation
group across all framework modes
- replace the standalone migration CTA with contextual prose that leads
naturally to `Import Thread History`
- replace ambiguous linked-card layouts with a comparison table,
explicit action links, and a conventional next-steps list
- migrate implementation-intent links to `/headless-threads` while
keeping product-level links on `/threads`
- correct the ADK Vertex importer project-variable reference
- add regression coverage for route availability, nav labels/order,
page-title separation, shared architecture placement, and
framework-aware link rewriting
## Authoring surfaces
- **Shared/root:** `src/content/docs/{threads,headless-threads}.mdx`,
shared overview and headless snippets, root `meta.json`, and responsive
light/dark diagram assets
- **Authored frameworks:** integration wrappers and navigation metadata;
shared navigation logic inserts the architecture page into each Threads
group
- **Generated frameworks:** shared root routes, snippets, and root
navigation; generated data files are not hand-edited
- **Built-in Agent:** authored wrapper plus the same shared navigation
injection
- **Cross-links/reference:** Drawer, import, CLI, architecture,
tutorials, and `useThreads` reference pages
## Routing and redirects
No redirect is added for the old `/threads` implementation URL because
`/threads` is intentionally reused by the new overview. Existing
external links to `/threads` now land on the product overview, and
internal links that specifically mean the custom `useThreads`
implementation guide have moved to `/headless-threads`. Framework-aware
link rewriting scopes both routes normally.
## Base
This PR targets `main` after #5915 merged. Its diff contains only the
Threads overview follow-up commits.
## Validation
- `npm run lint` (passes with existing repository warnings only)
- `npm run test` (32 files, 170 tests)
- `npm run typecheck`
- `npm run build` (214 static pages generated; existing Turbopack
tracing warning only)
- `git diff --check`
- SVG XML validation for both architecture assets
- live browser checks on root, Mastra, LangGraph Python, and Built-in
Agent routes
- light/dark diagram rendering and narrow/desktop layout passes
Shell Docs
showcase/shell-docs is the Next.js app that builds and serves
docs.copilotkit.ai. Author CopilotKit product documentation here, not in the retired
top-level docs/ app.
Run Locally
Shell-docs is a standalone npm-based app. You do not need a root install just to run the docs app locally.
cd showcase/scripts
npm install
cd ../shell-docs
npm install
npm run dev
The local dev server runs on port 3003.
http://localhost:3003
The shell-docs npm lifecycle generates registry, demo-content, setup-content, and search
data before dev, build, and typecheck.
Validate Changes
Run these from showcase/shell-docs:
npm run build
npm run typecheck
npm run test
For repo-level CI parity, prefer Nx when a shell-docs target is available in the current checkout and root dependencies are installed. For normal shell-docs local development, the npm commands above are the canonical path.
Authoring Recipes
Showcase-Driven Framework Docs
Showcase-driven frameworks use docs_mode: generated. The docs are assembled from showcase
registry/generated data, demos, source regions, shared/root MDX, snippets, and sparse
framework overrides.
To update showcase-driven docs:
- Edit the showcase source of truth: manifests, demos, feature coverage, source regions, or registry inputs.
- Edit shared/root MDX only when the change applies across generated frameworks.
- Add sparse framework overrides only for real framework-specific differences.
- Do not hand-edit generated files under
src/data/frameworks/. - Validate routes, sidebar state, search results, snippets, and framework switching.
Authored Framework Docs
Authored frameworks use docs_mode: authored. The framework owns an MDX tree under
src/content/docs/integrations/<docsFolder>/ with a meta.json sidebar.
To update authored docs:
- Check
getDocsFolder()insrc/lib/registry.ts; the URL slug and folder name may differ. - Edit the MDX page under
src/content/docs/integrations/<docsFolder>/. - Update that folder's
meta.jsonwhen adding, removing, or moving pages. - Reuse shared snippets from
src/content/snippets/when content should stay consistent across frameworks. - Validate the framework route, sidebar, search result, and any shared snippet render.
Reference Docs
Edit API reference pages under src/content/reference/.
The v2 reference does not use meta.json; navigation is generated by walking the tree and
reading each page's title and description frontmatter. Only the legacy reference/v1/
tree uses meta.json.
Snippets
Reusable snippets live under src/content/snippets/. Snippets may be rendered by root docs,
authored framework pages, and showcase-driven framework pages, so keep them general unless
the path is intentionally framework-specific.
Frontend Applicability
Frontend routes use page-level applicability metadata, independent from where the content is authored. A page can be authored MDX, showcase-generated content, mirrored protocol docs, or reference content and still be universal across frontends.
Use the frontend field in page frontmatter or meta.json when a root doc should appear in
non-React frontend docs:
universal— render the same page under/<frontend>/....frontend-variant— render only when a matching page exists undersrc/content/docs/frontends/<frontend>/....hide— omit the page from frontend-scoped docs.
Do not use "showcase-driven" as a proxy for frontend availability. Showcase derivation is an authoring/source detail; frontend applicability controls routing and sidebar inclusion.
AG-UI Mirrored Docs
AG-UI protocol docs are authored upstream in ag-ui-protocol/ag-ui. The
src/content/ag-ui/ tree is a downstream mirror rendered on the CopilotKit docs host.
Change AG-UI docs upstream first, then sync the mirror back into shell-docs.
Top-Level Docs Symlink
The repository's top-level docs/ path is a symlink to showcase/shell-docs/ for
contributor muscle memory. It is not a separate docs app. Do not recreate the old
docs/content/docs/ tree; author CopilotKit docs in showcase/shell-docs/src/content/.